Retro Sweets

Our family has been making Hand Made Sweets since the 1920's, and nothing much has changed in the making of them over the years.  This is a far cry from the mass production lines of some of the UK sweets manufacturers, but here every sweet gets our personal attention, and we pride ourselves on making the best. 
Compared to the uniformity of  mass produced sweets normally manufactured in the UK, our hand crafted sweets are made in interesting shapes and colours such as  Rainbow Crystals and  luminous pink Pear Drops, dazzling effects that a machine cannot do.
Mass produced sweets do not taste the same, our sugar boilers make sweets such as Kendal Mint Cake  in an open copper pan for a fuller flavour using cane sugar and the finest ingredients.

Traditional Sweets
Many shops claim to sell handmade sweets, but there are actually very few shops were the sweets are still made using an open draught fire on which a cauldron like copper pan sits.
 Most boiled sweets today are cooked through enclosed steam cookers
and the whole process of sweet making is automated. We specialise in Traditional Hand Made sweets, such as Herbal Tablets  Cough Candy and Nut Brittle, our sugar boilers use their experience to manufacture the sweets, rather than simply pressing a button.

Toffee  Fudge and Nougat
Caramels are known as soft eating sweets, while toffee is usually harder. Fudge is  very soft. The simplest toffee is made from sugar and glucose, with added flavours and the main difference between these sweets and hard boiled sweets is simply the temperature the sweets are taken to when cooked.

In the manufacture of hard boiled sweets the sugar is allowed to stay in its original state, however when making toffee the temperature is taken to a point were the sugar is no longer white, and changes flavour, giving the sweets a toffee flavour, sugar boilers call this process caramalisation.
This process starts to occur at a temperature of 320 degrees F
Butterscotch usually  includes 3-5 % of butter. Other luxury toffee also include milk, fats and butter in their ingredients.

Our  Hand Crafted  Fudge, also known as Tablet is grained,  the process of graining these sweets is done by hand while the sweet is still runny.
The combination of the rich ingredients and the care in making these sweets gives a taste which can not be compared to sweets that are mass produced.

Making Traditional Throat Sweets
To make  a boiling you need the following equipment-:                                      

• Large copper Pan
• Heat source, forced draught fire upon which the pan sits, fed by natural gas and compressed air.
• Pouring table slab, 6ft by 3ft metal table.
• A pair of brass rollers with which to form the desired shape. (look rather like old fashioned mangles) they are about 5 inches long and 3 inch in diameter.  The shapes in the rollers have been crafted by hand.

Drop roller, which power the rollers, and allow the rollers to synchronise together, producing the required shape of sweets.

Pear Drops
Ingredients-:
35lbs (16.5Kg) Cane Sugar                      15lbs(7Kg) Glucose Syrup
1oz  Pear drop Flavour                              Colour

Put a gallon of water in Copper Pan (4.55 Litres) Heat up and stir in sugar & syrup. Boil to 300f, pour onto slab.
Pear Drop flavour is  added vigorously by hand. The sweet mixture is divided into three parts in order to create three colours, pink white and yellow.
The white is created by placing the mixture on a pulling machine, which is basically three mechanical swigging arms, under this process the air is allowed to get into the mixture.
As it becomes the right consistency (our sugar boilers know this by experience) the Pear Drop mixture is fed through rollers, which form the shape of the sweets.
The rollers can be operated by hand or power. As the formed sweets come out at the other end of the rollers, they are carried along by conveyor to trays, were they are collected. The Pear Drop sweets are now formed. A sugar coating is added to the sweets, by first dampening then adding castor sugar which coats the damp sweets.

Sweets which do not have a sugar coating such as mint balls are packaged immediately

Herbal Cough Tablets
Ingredients-:
35lbs (16.5Kg) Cane Sugar                      15lbs(7Kg) Glucose Syrup
5oz (125g) Herbal Oils                               Gallon (4.55 litres) Water

These sweets are basically made the same way as the pear drops, but Herbal oils replace flavourings and no colour is added. The Herbal oils are added to the mixture  manually, the sugar boilers wear special  gloves as the semi liquid mixture is still  very hot.  When the sweet mixture is the correct consistency it is fed through the rollers as before, but this time the shape of the roller is different to give the sweets a saucer like shape.
The Herbal sweets are now formed. Again a sugar coating is added to the sweets.

Aniseed Twist
Ingredients-:
21lb Soft Brown Sugar                             15lb Glucose Syrup
14lb White Cane Sugar                             2oz Aniseed Oil
Caramel

Method-:  
Put a gallon (4.55litres) of water in a copper pan.  Heat up and stir in sugar & syrup.   pour the boiling mixture onto slab, forming a sticky sheet.

 Fold the mixture towards the centre of the slab as it becomes semi solid, knead into a putty like consistency.  The Oil of Aniseed is forced into the mixture by the use of a metal rod. If the essential oils are added while the mixture is still in full liquid form it will simply evaporate.

Put the sweet mixture on a metal tray to keep warm, and cut a chunk of toffee (about 3lb) this piece is then pulled repeatedly over a hook to lighten the colour until it becomes white. (this occurs due to the introduction of air) The white mixture forms the stripes in the sweets.
The mixture  is pulled out by hand to form a continuous rope shape,  this is then wrapped around metal rods by the use of a hand held machine (machine designed by my father Norman, in 1952) to form a curly shape.
When the sweets are cool they are removed from the rods. 

Liquorice
There are varieties of liquorice which have been moulded into novelties such as bootlaces or whips which are not true liquorice, but a mixture in which liquorice has been added as a flavouring.
A glazing effect can be added to give a polished look, but this is not necessary if  the sweets are  made properly.
Specialist equipment is needed for  making liquorice sweets, a pan is needed for the making of the syrup from raw sugar and special liquorice boiling pans are also needed.
Good quality wheat flour must be used, also the manipulation process is important to produce good quality  sweets. 

Sherbet    
Lemon Oil                 Bicarbonate of soda
84lb Icing sugar         Tartaric Acid

Sherbet can be used as a filling for sour sweets such as Sherbet Lemons or loose in bottles.  It can also be found in novelty type sweets such as, Dip Dabs and Sherbet Fountains. It is important that the blending of the ingredients for this type of sweets takes place in a dry environment  In the manufacture of  crystals  such as  Rainbow Crystals, castor sugar is used to give sweets with a grainier texture. .  

Marshmallow
Traditionally the flavours used in the making of marshmallow sweets are quite delicate. They are also aerated giving a very light texture.
Marshmallow sweets can be made by various methods including cooked and uncooked. The sweets are usually cooked, uncooked methods can be are used for the centre of sweets.

 A combination of the recipe and the method of manufacture will determine  the texture of the sweets. The amount of aeration & moisture are important as is the gelling agent used.

We do not manufacture Marshmallow ourselves. A traditional recipe for Marshmallows Sweets would be as follows-:
70lb Sugar                                   6oz isinglass 
 27lb Glucose                              1 oz Vanillin
3lb gelatine                                  5oz egg Albumen in 0.5 water

Catalogue :  Jelly Sweets  Gums  Traditional Hand Made  Childrens Sweets  Boiled Sweets   
Old Fashioned Mints  Sour Sweets  Liquorice  Fudge & Nougat  Chocolate Sweets  Sherbet Tubes of sweets   Bubble Gum, Toffee  Coconut Sweets  Sugar Free Sweets  Wholesale Sugar Free Chocolate lollies